Spring-Clean Your Technology the Marie Kondo Way

April 04, 2019

Tidying your tech leaves time and space for the connections that matter most. Here's how to do it.

Spring is a time for renewal, for cleansing and for self-care. And if tidying guru Marie Kondo has taught us anything, it's that eliminating clutter leaves us free to focus on the connections that matter most: family, friends, colleagues, neighbors and community.

Here are four tips to ensure your tech “sparks joy".

1: Lock up Your Passwords

Are you still using your firstborn's birthday as a password? Are you one of the millions who still rely on the evergreen “123456" or “password"? Or do you have so many different logins you keep them on a note in your desk drawer?

Take advantage of the spring spirit to enhance security and reduce stress by tidying up your passwords. Enabling Apple SSO (single sign-on) on Cox Contour means you don't need to keep remembering passwords and entering codes as all your logins are safely stored on your set top box. See? Easy and painless.

2: Slice Through the Cable Jungle

Old friendships are worth clinging to. Old cables? Not so much. Don your virtual safari outfit, pick up a metaphorical machete and hack your way through the tangle of connecting leads most of us keep stashed away in a cupboard somewhere. Send obsolete and duplicate cables for recycling, perhaps at Best Buy. Then label the ones you need, coil them, secure them and store them with the label clearly visible. Gadgets such as CableClip and Sumo help corral the most tangled of messes into a solution even Marie Kondo would approve.

3: Simplify Your Charging Station

Deliberately or accidentally, most of have a place where we leave our tech to charge overnight, and all too often that's the bedside table. Almost all small devices come with USB cables nowadays, so save room and improve the feel of your precious sleeping space by investing in a wall charger with multiple USB ports.

4: Recycle or Trade in Outdated Devices

Many of us will have a retro phone or laptop lying around, untouched since the day we replaced it. And, while it's great to maintain a reserve device for emergencies, few of us are going to use that 10-year-old flip phone again. Whether your gadget has enough value to trade in, or whether you'd like to help save the planet by recycling it, don't forget to download any images or data you want to keep then wipe the device clean before you hand it over.

While friendships and relationships may last a lifetime, technology does not. Spring-cleaning your tech will streamline your digital universe and free up time for the important things in life. And shunning outdated clutter in favor of new beginnings is exactly what spring is all about.